ON MISREPRESENTING MYSELF

I will probably misrepresent myself, but here we go with some stuff Joe and Eric think I think.

Joe: SETH’s comments that “I think weaning ourselves of the excessiveness that has become a cultural norm will help to bring us back towards sanity too.,” and “I wonder how many people would be willing and able to give up their cars altogether, stop buying goods made in sweatshops, or obtaining stuff they do not need in the first place,” make me believe that he also has anti-capitalist views (pinko).

Seth: When I read your statement that I have anti-capitalist views, it makes me believe that I will soon appear on a terrorist watch list and that my next move is to a hippie commune in Vermont. To use some of Barrack’s words you are using a hatchet when you should be using a scalpel. Yes, I think, much like Eric, that the world would be more sustainable living in smaller, more tightly knit communities where food is locally grown, houses are made of local materials, and no one travels too far from home. However, I understand that there is not a switch to turn globalization off, I also do not think globalization is a “bad” thing. There are problems that come along with globalization and implementing capitalism all over the world that I believe are wedded to cultural baggage, but connecting the world might just give us the chance to end extreme poverty for many, educate many more people and in particular more women, and cure or at least curb AIDS and/or cancer. I think globalization is like working on a group project in college. Yes, sometimes you are going to be the one that does a lot/all of the work and sometimes that might detract from your grade, while it improves another group member’s. However, if you continue to work with those group members, maybe they will catch up, maybe they will start carrying you along for the A+, or best of all maybe there can be legitimate collaboration when everyone is working instead of figuring out whose working hardest. Really, I don’t want redistribution of wealth, but I do want redistribution of education, redistribution of safety, and redistribution of opportunities. How do we do that?

Joe: SETH believes in God, believes in the usefulness of belief in God, and believes that others should believe in God (?).

Seth: I do believe in God and believe in the usefulness of the belief in God in my own life, but I also believe in the problems that have come from the masses believing in God. I will get to environmental problems and religion in a bit, but religions and especially Christianity have made following God and serving other “children of God” quite difficult. I say this because of all the harm that I have read about and have seen in my own life that Christians have caused other Christians, other people, themselves, and the world in which they live. Linking a concept like eternity with certain beliefs and following certain rules is a recipe to manipulate the actions of the masses. Luckily I grew up in a Christian Community that taught me to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your MIND*, and with all your strength” and to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Mark 12:28 and 30, NRSV Bible) before it taught me that I better “get right or get left” as many church billboards read. Recently my goal has been to figure out with much greater clarity how Jesus lived and treated other “believers,” “sinners,” and the world in which he lived. I have been dissecting my way of living. The truth of the matter is the best advice I received in this search and dissection came from the Suffragan Bishop of Alabama, Kee Sloan, when he told a great story about being wrong. That advice was that, “I might just be wrong.” I hope to write a lot more on this topic in an upcoming blog post.

*my own capitalization

Joe: I think we all agree that more food, more medicine, more water, etc. for more people is a good thing.

Seth: Only one change...More food, more medicine, more water, etc. for [some]^ people is a good thing.

^some = everyone deserves all of these things, but the ones who need it the most are the ones typically the hardest to get these to and vice versa.

Joe: I think we’re all left-leaning idealists who assume that democracy is a good thing which can and should be implemented on a global scale (?).

Seth: I am a bit left-leaning on some issues and right-leaning on others. I don’t want to be pegged as a republican or democrat. I am more of a “maverick.” If democracy could only be implemented in a cultural vacuum I would be all for it. The problem here is that religion and government are tied in ways very foreign to my own understanding of democracy, so I am not in favor of more Iraq situations, but I am in favor of people having all the freedoms that I believe everyone deserves.

Eric: SETH: "The crisis is big and urgent, I don't see Christianity as a source of the problem and I think it can provide a solution. I think about this topic a lot."

I defended Christianity in the past Eric and I know you and I disagreed on a lot of points. Recently though, I have seen some flaws in my defense. I was hoping to talk more here, but it will have to come in my next post on being wrong.